Josh, Liz and I brought our Henri Nouwen books to this prayer time and we talked about how no matter the depths you dive into God, there is more to discover. We practiced one of the spiritual disciplines that was written about in his book and then we lifted up prayer requests for each other. Liz said that her pro-bono Lubbock catering deal last week went well and that she had several of the people there come up to her and not only thank her but also to tell her that they would be calling her for paid gigs in the near future. See. You do something nice for people and it usually comes back around. Josh just said that his landscaping company was rolling along even as he tried to implement some of the tips from this business group. He said he needed prayer for a whole new culture to be built so that everyone would complain less and work harder with a smile on their faces. I just asked for general prayer for my family. My wife is going in for her yearly doctor’s appointment and she always dreads it. I hope and pray there is nothing seriously wrong with her. I doubt that there is but you never know. And if there was and she died, my life would crumble. I probably need to work on my God-reliance…

At the larger group meeting, we had an insurance claims adjuster speak to us. His name is Wesley. Wesley did a brief introduction about his company and what they did to make sure that people got the right money for what had happened to them. He told a quick story about a fire damage claim and then he got into the meat of his talk which was another marketing talk. It’s funny because I have been so tied to “word-of-mouth” business throughout my time as head of my company. But, after hearing all of these talks on marketing, I am definitely open to doing more of what has been mentioned. I digress. Let’s get back to Wesley. He talked about how all of our businesses needed to move from business card to book. In other words, he told us that while business cards might get used by some people to link up to clients, there is a way to legitimize our companies even more by writing books for Kindle and even print books through Create Space (Amazon’s print on demand company). He said that when business people meet up and you have a high-quality but slim book to give them, they will immediately respect you more than if you just handed over a business card. He said that every company is filled with workers who have interesting life stories and even work stories. Wesley said that if we had someone to interview employees and then to transcribe what they had to say, then we could put together the story of our businesses quite simply and very cheaply. He said that the days of giving away pens and golf balls with your businesses’ name on it were over. We needed to be at the forefront of writing books to increase our legitimacy.

Several people were not into what he said and hit him with hard questions. But there were others, like me, who thought his idea was very smart. I know that when I meet someone who has authored a book, I am immediately impressed and figure that they are someone to be trusted more so than others who only hand out business cards. Call that naïve if you want, but I’m just being honest.

So that’s that. Readers, let me know what you think about this idea. Thanks in advance.